OBITUARIES, FOREIGN. (MULHALL MUNKACSY.) 



531 





Wood, an actress of Mr. Augustin Daly's original 

 New York company. In the autumn of 1878 Mor- 

 ris went to San Francisco under engagement as 

 comedian of the California Theater, where he 

 scored an enthusiastic success as the Pasha in the 

 first American presentation of the comic opera 

 Fatinitza, and thenceforward was a favorite. 

 He remained here until 1880, playing the leading 

 comedy parts with Barrett, Boucicault, Lester 

 Wallack, John T. Raymond, Robson and Crane, 

 the Florences, John McCullough, and the usual 

 routine of stock work. On May 15, 1879, he mar- 

 ried Miss Wood. The " Old California " com- 

 pany, as it is affectionately called by its friends, 

 was disbanded forever in 1880, and Morris sought 

 engagement in the East. He was for a time in 

 Lester Wallack's company, and for a longer time 

 endured much ill fortune in various short en- 

 gagements, including a disastrous trip through 

 the West Indies. During this period he made a 

 very great success as the English correspondent 

 in the first production of Michael Strogoff at 

 Booth's Theater, New York, and was finally en- 

 gaged as a member of the Union Square company. 

 He then adapted the story of Young Mrs. Geof- 

 frey for Miss Helen Dauvray, under the name 

 Mona. The only useful result of this work was 

 that the production of the play first introduced 

 E. H. Sothern to favorable notice. In the sum- 

 mer of 1885 Mr. and Mrs. Morris went to London, 

 but soon became homesick for America and se- 

 cured passage to return. While waiting for the 

 departure day, Morris was offered and accepted 

 part of the professor in a version of Ultimo 



lied On 'Change, which was to be produced for 

 a single morning performance two days before the 

 sailing of his steamer. He played the part with 

 an inimitable Scotch dialect, and, to the astonish- 

 ment of himself, the author, and all London, the 

 play was so great a success and his own imper- 

 sonation so captivating, that Morris and the 

 Scotch professor became from that day institu- 

 tions of the British stage. This production oc- 

 curred at Toole's Theater in August, and the play 

 ran without interruption for three hundred and 

 sixty performances. While enjoying this success, 

 Morris first entered into the business connection 

 witli Miss Rosina Yokes, during the long con- 

 tinuation of which these players delighted thou- 

 sands in England and America with their per- 

 formances in such plays as The Game of Cards, 

 The Old Musician, and A Pantomime Rehearsal. 

 After Miss Vokes's death he became a member 

 of the Lyceum Stock Company of Xew York, 

 under the management of Daniel Frohman, and 

 witli these players made his last appearance, ex- 

 cept in vaudeville, as Walter Hinzelman in At the 

 White Horse Tavern at Wallack's Theater, New 

 York, in February, 1891). He had been for several 

 seasons a great favorite in short performances 

 in the vaudeville theaters throughout the coun- 

 try, and found this kind of work more profitable 

 than a regular stock engagement. His last ap- 

 pearance was at Brooklyn, N. Y., Dec. 24, 1899, 

 in a little sketch called Behind the Scenes, pre- 

 ceded by his beautiful personation of Kerry, in a 

 scene from Boucicault's play of that name. 



Mulhall, Michael George, an Irish statisti- 

 cian, born in Dublin, Ireland, in 1836; died in 

 Killiney, Ireland, Dec. 12, 1900. His educa- 

 tion was obtained at the Irish College in Rome. 

 In 1861 he founded the Buenos Ayres Stand- 

 ard, the first English daily in South America. 

 He was widely known as a statistician, and 

 was a constant contributor to the Contemporary 

 Review. In 1880 he estimated that the popula- 

 tion of the United States in 1900 would amount 



to 76,200,000, and the astonishing accuracy of his 

 forecast was shown when the census of 1900 was 

 reported as 76,295,000. He was the author of 

 Rio Grande do Sul and its German Colonies (Lon- 

 don, 1873) ; Europe to Paraguay and Matto 

 Grosso (1877); The Progress of the World in 

 Arts, etc., since the Beginning of the Nineteenth 

 Century (1880) ; The Balance Sheet of the World, 

 1870-'80 (1880); A Dictionary of Statistics 

 (1883); History of Prices since the Year 1850 

 (1885) ; The Argentine Republic: A Handbook of 

 the River Plate (with E. T. Mulhall) (1869; tith 

 edition, 1886) ; Fifty Years of National Progress, 

 1837-'87 (1887); Industries and Wealth of Na- 

 tions (1896). 



Munkacsy, Michael de, a Hungarian painter, 

 born in Munkacs, Oct. 10, 1844; died in Bonn, 

 Germany, May 1, 1900. His original name was 

 Lieb and his early training was as a carpenter. 

 His father, a petty official, and his mother hav- 

 ing both died, he was bound out to a trade at 

 the age of ten, and was treated so brutally by his 

 master that he ran away. He was befriended by 

 a portrait painter, and having learned his artistic 

 gift, made his way to Pesth, where Ligeti, a land- 

 scape painter, gave him a few lessons, went on to 

 Vienna, and thence, in 1865, to Munich, earning 

 his living as best he could while studying in the 

 academy, and gaining hope and inspiration as he 

 acquired knowledge and facility, and finally 

 reached Diisseldorf in 1868. The painters Bau- 

 tier and Knaus interested themselves in him, and 

 his work found recognition immediately. In 1870 

 he sent to the Paris Salon Le Dernier Jour d'un 

 Condamne, which by its strong painting and 

 dramatic power created a sensation. He had al- 

 ready been hailed as one of the brightest of the 

 young painters of the Diisseldorf school, and the 

 vigor and boldness of his style had a reflex influ- 

 ence upon the others. His first exhibit \vas so 

 enthusiastically received in Paris that he went 

 there to work, but for some years he kept up the 

 Diisseldorf traditions, turning out genre paint- 

 ings giving anecdotes based on types and epi- 

 sodes of his native country, but striking in exe- 

 cution and marked by individuality. The influ- 

 ence of French art showed itself first clearly in 

 his Interieur d'Atelier, containing his portrait and 

 that of his wife. His Milton Dictating Paradise 

 Lost, exhibited in 1878, won for him the admira- 

 tion of the multitude and spread his fame to 

 many lands. His Christ before Pilate, in 1881, 

 made him the most popular painter of the day. 

 The artists of Paris gave him a feast to compli- 

 ment him on his triumph, and the speculator 

 who bought his painting exhibited it in all the 

 countries of Europe, brought it in 1889 to the 

 Universal Exhibition, and finally sold it to John 

 Wanamaker for $100,000. Christ on Calvary, in 

 1884, renewed his triumph. Although artists 

 find in him a lack of refinement and invention, 

 and call his work shallow and theatrical., his use 

 of blacks and bitumens vicious, still he is recog- 

 nized as the strongest of the painters who have 

 endeavored to interpret the Gospel story with 

 modern taste and technique. He painted an Ecce 

 Homo later. These works brought him wealth, 

 enabling him to entertain magnificently in his 

 Parisian mansion. Mozart Dying was the last of 

 his historical paintings in oil. He painted small 

 genre pictures of elegant life in bright tones, and 

 some effective portraits. Afterward he devoted 

 himself almost exclusively to decorative allegorical 

 and historical compositions for the Vienna Muse- 

 um and the hall of Parliament in Buda-Pesth, 

 until his brain became diseased several years be- 

 fore his death. 



